Physically Unable to Perform: It's Circle The Wagons Week

Each week, Jeff Johnson and David Roth riff on the NFL, the healthiest professional sports league in America. Only, not everything is as healthy as it seems. Today, Jeff and David look ahead to Week Three.

Jeff: I’m predicting a Giants win. The Eagles bandwagon is actually a Mercury Sable with a unidentifiable film on the seats.

David: Really? I’d love it, but Eli Manning has been the most Eli Manning I’ve ever seen him of late. Open-mouthed confusion a-go-go.

Jeff: Oh, he won’t be responsible for it. It will be all defensive touchdowns...except Domenik Hixon will take a lateral and throw a TD to recently un-retired Madison Hedgecock.

David: Thus far this season, Eli has looked and played like someone just woke him up by yelling something like, "I think there are wolves in the house."

Jeff: It appears that Eli sometimes plays like he just had his wisdom teeth out.

David: Totally. A little woozy, a little terrified. Words you don’t want to hear your team leader say in the huddle: "Is this real life?"

Jeff: Coughlin saying, "He just has to get his blood flowing. This will wear off after a couple of possessions, and if it doesn’t there is a lesson in that, too." This is old now, but reading snippets of that recent Plaxico interview actually made me root for Coughlin for the first time ever. Plax was incensed that Coughlin told him: "You could have hurt someone." And he was like, I think I have this under control, old-timer. An unlicensed, loaded handgun in my sweatpants at a nightclub, and this fool wants me to be careful? I am a grown man.

David: So this is very Eastern Liberal Rootless Cosmopolite Jewish Person of me, but I didn’t fire a handgun in my life until a couple of weeks ago. And guess what: they’re fucking terrifying!

Jeff: A Daisy air rifle is the highest caliber I’ve ever handled. And I ruined a stranger’s camper. Or at least their windows and then re-enacted the old Walter Hill movie Southern Comfort .

David: The handgun was fun to shoot in a supervised setting, but holy shit do NOT put that near your penis! Especially if you’re wearing sweatpants out to the club which, and I agree this whole thing is years-old by now, but I have not figured that out yet. Was he also wearing flip-flops and sweat socks and a Big Dogs T-shirt? I’d prefer my receivers not dress like eccentric uncles.

Jeff: Yep. I still don’t know how Baltimore lost to Tennessee last week. I feel like the Titans are federally funded. Filled with decaying slot receivers and guys who have jobs in the off-season at the DMV.

David: Weirdest box score of last weekend. I am going to have to ignore it, because the very idea of that team just whistle-to-whistle dominating the Ravens doesn’t make sense to me.

Jeff: Tennessee is going to be another 8-8 team that beats good teams and loses to bad ones. After just two weeks I am certain of this.

David: A message scrolled across my consciousness on Twitter: "Hasselbeck looks really good." Which I just assumed was a dream, or some sort of drug-reaction. Maybe he started wearing a wig. It’d be great if he did that.

Jeff: I wonder if Hasselbeck wants to settle in Nashville, or if he views this as a quasi-Mormon mission on his way to the Hall of Fame.

David: He wants to open a coffee shop and have Mark Lanegan curate an open-mic night. Bring a little Seattle to Nashville, do some cultural exchange. Since he started wearing the wig, he just feels more confident, more creative. He likes to be called Matthew now.

Jeff: Does the name "Roy Helu" mean anything to you?

David: He is an apparently non-fictitious running back?

Jeff: Yep. He is a real person and not some Robert Downey, Jr. electronics-magnate character. I like how a few teams are basically throwing in the towel already. "There’s only 14 games left. We will just play our hardest with what we have and let the chips fall where they may."

David: They’re just playing because they get snacks after games now.

Jeff: I’m pretty sure Dierdorf last week was like, "Blaine Gabbert is the future, but he knows he has to sit. The Jags know it. There have been no camps. No off-season stuff. And when he is ready, he will play. Until then, he just needs to soak it all up and learn." Cut to today: "You’re starting, Gabbert."

Jeff: And the Colts are doing the old Mets trick. "Bring any shopping cart to the stadium and for $18 you can fill it with hot dogs and old shoulder pads, and have your picture taken with Ted Marchibroda. Just come out to the game. Kids get in free, and we will pay for one year of their college education."

David: I know the Chiefs are going to let the 103rd caller at the local jammin’ oldies station play left guard on Sunday. But I never thought of that as a stunt, per se.

David: It couldn’t be Del Rio. He cranks Peter Cetera in his Aerostar and doesn’t like it when people talk over the songs. So you just have to sit there and listen to this long mixtape he made in which every third song is "The Glory Of Love (Love Theme From Karate Kid)."

Jeff: I love that Matt Turk is making $2 million as a 43 year-old punter. Speaking of old guys, who is the best option to replace Kerry Collins at QB for Indianapolis: 1) David Garrard 2) Sage Rosenfels 3) Jared Lorenzen 4) Brett Favre 5) Brady Quinn

David: /Trent Dilfer Voice/ Now one guy who doesn’t get mentioned enough is Don Majkowski. He’s got the experience, he has an earring, he has played football in the National Football Association. And he has a bunch of Outback franchises around Elkhart, IN, so he already knows the Colts offense. And that is why I think Don Majkowski is better than Peyton Manning. /Trent Dilfer Voice off/

Jeff: And I’d be lying if I didn’t think Tony Mandarich had another season of football inside of his body and underneath his "Appetite for Destruction" tattoo. He can block for the Majik Man. Oh, wait, I forgot about Jeff George!

David: I have my own coreligionist-related reasons for liking Sage Rosenfels, but I do wonder why a team with a lousy offensive line would bring in a 40-something dude who has to play in a hover-round personal mobility scooter to run their offense? As for George, we obviously both forget him at our peril. There are articles every few years. "He’s still just 44, and did sit-ups as recently as last week."

Jeff: In a tavern, as part of a bet. Where some other things happened and no charges were filed. "Jeff George threw a racquetball through a plate glass window from 550 yards, and then got a divorce, and it was all part of WPLW’s Night of 7 Stars. And as a result, one lucky, needy child will get 40% off of camping gear."

David: It was the right move for him at the time. I’m referring to the racquetball thing. He’s still outside Tina’s house every night, just sitting in his Corvette listening to Mellencamp. Waiting.

Jeff: So the only thing left to ask is: "WHY DID YOU LIE TO HIM?" and when I say YOU, I am talking owners, coaches, ecutives, players, fans, women, agents, car dealers. He has a CANNON! But he has no regard for the man’s playbook...I’d bet Jeff Garcia is nosing around. Trying to get Kerry Collins to drink again.

David: Tampering with the in-dash breathalyzer unit.

Jeff: "It’d be really cool if you went out and drank a bottle of Midori and then let nature take its course. Meanwhile I need to get fitted for these cleats."

David: Garcia’s a villain in your universe. I just kind of think of him as an unctuous gym teacher. A guy who wears a whistle to the john, or the movies. Telling other peoples’ schnauzers to "Take a lap!" if he catches them acting up.

Jeff: Rumor has it Jeff Garcia has rented a studio apartment near the Best Buy out on 1-465.

David: Just in case.

Jeff: I don’t know why I feel like he’s a bad guy. He’s a fierce competitor and probably nicer than I give him credit for. Maybe he could patch things up with T.O. and bring him to Indy. I kind of like how the NFL has decided they are done with certain players collectively.

David: It’s weirdly like when the culture is just kind of like "Okay, Charlie Sheen. I’m good for now, Thanks." Randy Moss could run a 4.4 40 tomorrow and put out an acclaimed book of poetry, and he’d still be without a gig.

Jeff: I don’t think this rule should ever apply to Packers RBs from the mid-’00s: Samkon Gado, Vernand Morency, Najeh Davenport...I wish they all had jobs.

David: I trust that Davenport is doing well for himself in the private laundry-pooping sector. But Gado was great. He was shaped like a cursor on an old Apple IIC. An unexciting square that somehow scored a bunch of TDs while Dorsey Levens was hurt.

David: Does players faking injuries bother you?

Jeff: Only Darnell Dockett. And many other things he does are questionable, too:

David: I know there are football types getting all outraged about it—the Pro Football Talk dudes were seriously madder about this than anyone was about going to war in Iraq—but I just think it’s funny. The fake injury thing, not Iraq, which was a terrible mistake. All these giant guys falling to the turf being like "my calf, OH GOD MY CALF" and then popping back up. When soccer players do it, it’s kind of weasel-y and stereotypical, but Shaun Phillips is too fucking buff for subterfuge. The Giants got in trouble for two dudes simultaneously faking cramps on Monday night. Deon Grant issued a fervid denial that included the phrase "I ain’t no duck or no dummy," which is good.

Jeff: Cincinnati has basically cast itself as the Marseilles of, um, Ohio. Apropos of nothing: Have you ever been at a Jets game and it’s getting dark at like 3:19 P.M. and the stadium is sort of quiet and this whistle comes on over the PA?

David: That is actually video of me.

Jeff: It feels like a Camus novel. The despair. I’m talking at the stadium and in that video. "She’s trying to figure out why her name is Dave?"

David: Oh shit, ourobouros at the ending. It was a bird in a computer all along. Spoiler alert everyone, sorry.

David: Also it turns out that Bruce Willis was a ghost, while I’m giving things away.

Jeff: I actually think they should play this at Met Life stadium whenever the Jets start losing by more than a TD:

David: This would sound sweet pumping over the Stadium PA. Fireman Ed Anzalone with his eyes closed, just feeling it.

Jeff: They’d be the only team that has Losing music. Speaking of which: Jay Cutler has been sacked 11 times already this year. So that’s where David Garrard might wind up. Once Cutler’s legs turn into spicy ham jerky.

Jeff: There’s always Charlie Batch, too.

David: Is he available? I thought he was sixth on the quarterback depth chart in Pittsburgh. The most recent one I have reads: Ben Roethlisberger, Byron Leftwich, Dennis Dixon, Mark Malone, "Clint Gurney," Charlie Batch, Tommy Maddox. (The quotes are from the Steelers media guide)

Jeff: I feel like Pat Summerall was 38 years old when Charlie Batch first started QB-ing. This was good from the Chicago Tribune: "Mike Martz has to wonder what it would be like to employ a wide-open passing attack for one more game now that he has had several days to digest the Packers on film."

David: Mike Martz only ever wonders about that. He’s like, "Our tight ends need to throw more passes. So let’s teach the fullbacks how to lateral better this practice, once the receivers get done practicing their pooch-punts."

David: He is like my Jeff Garcia, in terms of me fervently believing something about him that no one else does. Everyone else is like "oh yeah, the guy in the glasses, loves to pass, got in trouble for sneaking into Marc Bulger’s house and trying on all his clothes back in St. Louis." And I see him as the NFL’s answer to Colonel Kurtz, ruling over a weird lawless jungle kingdom in his mind, forever trying to find more varied uses for Mike Furrey and having a section in his playbook tabbed "Reverses, Double/Triple/The Ultimate."

Jeff: The Eagles lost to the Falcons. The Bears beat the Falcons. The Bears are not great...

David: Ergo: the Arizona Cardinals win the Super Bowl. QED.

Jeff: After beating the Tennessee Titans. Even though Kevin Kolb threw for 5 TDs.

David: So, getting back to the Jets, I want to try to develop a TV show with Fireman Ed.

Jeff: It just dawned on me that he is essentially Michael Lohan. Looks like him. Acts like him. Same attitude settings. Profound manic joy and gut-squelching rage.

David: What a terrible thing to say about someone. My concept is an old-style ’50s talk show. Just a table, two guys smoking and drinking old-fashioned’s and having detailed conversations about foreign policy and architecture. The name of the show is "Fireman Ed Anzalone’s Open Mind." So it’s kind of like Charlie Rose, only Charlie Rose is Fireman Ed and the guest is, like, Frank Gehry. Ed’s got the helmet and Wayne Chrebet jersey on.

Jeff: Bruce Harper! I’d Tivo it. I’m not going to miss New England at Buffalo. Buffalo 28-Patriots 24, by the way. Even though it will be on satellite in my area. Packers vs. Bears. Saints vs. Texans. Eagles vs. Giants. Jets vs. Raiders. The rest of the games, I don’t care about.

David: I am afraid of what will happen in Bills vs. Patriots. The Bills have few players left from when the Pats would beat them by 45 points a few years ago. But hopefully someone remembers. Ralph Wilson shuffles into the locker room and is like "I knew Trent Edwards. He was a good man, Stanford graduate. Now he lives in a boxcar and just eats the powder from Oodles of Noodles. The Patriots did that to him. Now you go do it to them, and do it for Trent!" And then the Bills lose by 21 and pop champagne in the locker room after.

Jeff: Buffalo is winning that game. No question.

Jeff Johnson whines almost hourly here, and is cruel to sportscards here and here.

David Roth co-writes the Wall Street Journal’s Daily Fix blog, writes the sports column "The Mercy Rule" at Vice.com, and writes regularly for The Awl, among other places. He tweets here.

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